my journey from gluttonous to glorious

A few weeks back my husband mentioned that he’d read somewhere that it was good to eat 8 meals a day.

I gave him that Are you kidding me? look, because I mean, come on… I eat 8 meals a day and gain twenty pounds.

{Of course, let’s not bring up the fact that five out of those eight meals consisted of cookie dough and Hershey kisses.}

But I totally blew him off.

Until I started thinking about Steven Furtik’s new years messages from last year and just the phrase “Change the way we change” kept popping into my head, so I thought that I’d give it a go. Cause I’ve never done that whole 8-meals a day thing even though it’s totally “cool” with the whole nutritionists clan (which is probably part of the reason I didn’t want to do it… it’s a pride thing, but that’s for another blog). But ya know, I knew it would validate my sweet husband a little that I would try his idea and at the same time showing him that I would instantly blow up into a huge blimp.

Only.

Yeah… that didn’t happen.

I loved it.

Cause eating eight meals a day (well, I actually usually only eat six or seven but that is more than the “traditional” three) is awesome. You get to eat, like, all day long. Which is exactly what I was doing before only it was wayyyyyyyy less on purpose and with wayyyyyyyy more overeating and with wayyyyyyy more junk food!

Eight meals a day is like a dream come true for an overeater!

Cause what do we do normally? Well, we eat all day. So what we are doing here is still eating all day, but now we are focusing on our portion control and our hungry cues and smart eating.

It’s purposeful.
It’s fulfilling.
It’s easy.
It fits with any diet!

Okay, honestly, I’m gonna let you look up the science behind it (if you want). I haven’t read any of the science, but I do know that I get hungry about every two hours (if I’m eating smaller portions) soooooooooo, that’s basically my rule of thumb. Since I don’t have a hard and fast schedule like someone might in the traditional workplace, I go by when I ate last. For example, here’s what I might eat in a day:

8:00am – apple with another cup of tea (or the toast if I didn’t eat at 6:00)

10:00am – small bowl of granola and milk

12:00pm – salad, split in two

2:00pm – salad, the other half

4:00pm – banana

6:00pm – black beans and rice, split in two

8:00pm – (tends to be optional for me) the rest of my black beans and rice (or I usually have a cup of tea)

Okay, I know what you’re thinking:

Uhhhhhhhhh, Rowe. A banana??? Yeah, that is NOT a meal.

Tell me about it.

But I think it’s a meal in the sense that you are stopping what you are doing to eat. I am being deliberate about preparing something for myself. Deliberate about stopping and making food happen. So, if you want to call it three meals and planned out snacks… that’s fine. But “eight meals a day” was just easier to say! (Ha!)

One other caveat that I’d add: I’ve been tracking calories. I know, I know… I always said that I hated it (and I promise to always have at least some mild distaste for the process), but I started doing it because I realized that I needed some accountability and some retraining, so I found this app where other people can see my “food diary”. I’m not like crazy about the calories but it is helping me to get a better understanding of my portions. Like, I always mocked the portion sizes on, for example, cereal boxes… but actually if I’m eating smaller portions (more frequently) then it’s actually perfect. Tracking is keeping me from dumping as much salad dressing on my salad. It’s helped me to know that while broccoli and squash and stuff like that isn’t “free”, it is certainly a great way to “foof” up a meal that would have otherwise been plain.

I know this isn’t a very Jesusy post (but the last few have been pretty spiritual if you need some Jesus: Day 734, Day 730, Day 729, and Day 728), but it’s something that is helping me along my journey from gluttonous to glorious, so I just thought I’d share some of the nitty gritty!

Which might seem like a insignificant little topic but if you think about anytime you go on a diet what is one of the things that they always regulate?

Salad dressing.

Which is a shame because most salad dressings are sooooooo gooooooood. Of course, this is coming from a girl that really only eats ranch and blue cheese dressings. But both of those are sooooooo gooooooood.

Anyway, even though the medium for this topic is salad dressing, that’s really not the main point. The main thing on my mind is: excess.

And excess is the real reason that most diets limit salad dressings. It is the real thing reason that most diets are trying to limit. And the real reason most people lose weight on a diet… not the specific foods they are eating (although that is important to a degree), but the fact that they are eating less.

Think about it:

Calorie Counting: the main goal here is to limit the amount one eats in a day. It works for some people because they limit the amounts they eat to stay in that range. It failed for me because I would tally how many brownies I could eat that would keep me in that range.

Atkins:by cutting out carbs from your diet you limit the amount of food you eat. It works for some because carbs are the foods they are “addicted” to. Worked for me once then failed me every other time because I still didn’t have the self-discipline to not eat the foods on the “no” list.

Weight Watchers: which is essentially calorie counting but just on a much smaller scale (no pun intended- haha!). But it also causes you to limit the amount of your daily intake. It works for some because they are limiting what they eat in a day, possibly making better food choices as well. Plus I think their groups help a lot too. It seems that most people that have success with WeightWatchers do so because of the groups. It didn’t work for me because a) I hate math and even with the calculator I had to tally all my stuff, and b) again, I had to have the motivation and self-discipline to stay within my points. Plus I did the online version… so, no groups.

But all three of those (and there are, of course, a zillion more) limit food choices and in doing so they limit salad dressing. Yes, see, I got back to the topic again! Ha!

And here’s the deal. If I’m gonna eat a LEAF, then I want to put something on said LEAF to make it taste like……… well, like a not-leaf. And that stuff is called salad dressing. So I don’t want to put on something fake-tasting because then it’ll be like eating a fake-LEAF. And that is even worse!

So I knew that salad dressings were going to be one of those things that I wouldn’t put a limit on (unless it became an issue and I started eating bowls of just ranch… which I wouldn’t have put that past me). But what I have noticed is that I eat far less salad dressing on my leaves than I used to. (And yes, I looked up the word “leaves” to make sure that was the correct plural of “leaf”.)

I used to eat what was essentially leaf soup. A handful of salad with globs and globs of dressing. In essence I just didn’t want to taste the leaves at all. But one of the most important retrainings that is happening to me is the avoidance of gluttony. And a truck load of dressing was… gluttony. Yes, apparently, one can even gluttonize with a salad. And so recently when I ate a salad and put on my regular amount of dressing, I looked down at it and thought… not. pleasing. to. God.

And I scraped a ton of it back into the jar.

And the salad was awesome.

Maybe because now I eat salad with all sorts of goodies on it: carrots, cherry tomatoes, celery, cilantro, chopped peanuts, feta cheese, bell peppers, mushrooms, and a good mix of salad. I don’t even give much room for those dern leaves anymore. Heck, I could probably leave them out entirely!

But I think it was extra good because I scraped off all of that bitter-tasting, guilt-producing, stomach-churning gluttony. And instead sprinkled on some amazingly tasty “honor-God”.

You should try some… it’ll change your life.

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.Titus 2:11

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Meet Me

Hey there, friend, my name is January! Almost two years ago, realizing I was addicted to food (mainly sugar) I made a covenant with God to only eat certain foods and I'm blogging my way through it!

I'd love for you to join me on this journey as we seek God to help us through addiction to food, gluttony, overeating... whatever you want to call it. I truly believe that through covenanting with God that we can be free of this weight that brings us down, and we can move from gluttonous to glorious!